BNP membership list.

Mark Walker made this Freedom of Information request to Thames Valley Police

The request was refused by Thames Valley Police.

From: Mark Walker

6 October 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide the following information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.

In November 2008 the membership list of the British National Party
(BNP) was published online. On September 1, 2009 a disgruntled
former official Matt Single was convicted in relation to this for
offences under the Data Protection Act.

I refer to Schedule 1 of The Data Protection Principles.

Under Schedule 1, any use of 'sensitive personal data' must be
processed
only when at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and
at
least one of the conditions in Schedule 3 is also met.

1. Please tell me if Thames Valley Police has processed any data
relating to the leaked British National Party membership list.

2. Please tell me which of the conditions in Schedule 2 and
Schedule 3
were met when processing sensitive personal data?

3. Has sensitive personal data been used for any purposes other
than
comparing against the Thames Valley Police personnel database?

4. Who was responsible for the decision to compare sensitive
personnel
data against Thames Valley Police's personnel data?

5. What were the grounds for such a decision?

6. I request the minutes of any meeting held to come to such a
decision.

7. Please describe the process used in making such a decision and
whether the consequences of this decision, if any, were assessed.

Yours faithfully,

Mark Walker

Solidarity Trade Union

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From: FOI
Thames Valley Police

7 October 2009

Dear Mr Walker

Reference No: RFI2009000700

Thank you for your request for information dated 06/10/2009 concerning the
published BNP Membership List with regards to the Data Protection
Principles.

This request will be dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.

Your request will now be considered and you will receive a response within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Act, subject
to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third
party. In some circumstances Thames Valley Police may be unable to achieve
this deadline. If this is likely you will be informed and given a revised
time-scale at the earliest opportunity.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Thames Valley Police.

Yours sincerely,

Jane Shields

Freedom of Information Administrator

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From: FOI
Thames Valley Police

21 October 2009

Dear Mr Walker,

Reference No : RFI2009000700

Thank you for your request for information dated 06/10/2009 which for
clarity, I repeat below:

In November 2008 the membership list of the British National Party (BNP)
was published online. On September 1, 2009 a disgruntled former official
Matt Single was convicted in relation to this for offences under the Data
Protection Act.

I refer to Schedule 1 of The Data Protection Principles. Under Schedule 1,
any use of 'sensitive personal data' must be processed only when at least
one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and at least one of the
conditions in Schedule 3 is also met.

1. Please tell me if Thames Valley Police has processed any data relating
to the leaked British National Party membership list.

2. Please tell me which of the conditions in Schedule 2 and Schedule 3
were met when processing sensitive personal data?

3. Has sensitive personal data been used for any purposes other than
comparing against the Thames Valley Police personnel database?

4. Who was responsible for the decision to compare sensitive personnel
data against Thames Valley Police's personnel data?

5. What were the grounds for such a decision?

6. I request the minutes of any meeting held to come to such a decision.

7. Please describe the process used in making such a decision and whether
the consequences of this decision, if any, were assessed.

Your request for information has now been considered. Thames Valley Police
can neither confirm nor deny it holds any information in relation to
investigations it may or may not have conducted, which have not
subsequently been placed in the public domain. Not only would this
undermine any current investigation by alerting those who are suspected of
criminal activity, but it may also thwart any such investigation which is
being managed as a covert operation. This in itself would disclose our
tactical options, undermining future operations, but also in this case
personally disclose the name of an individual.

This is because the list you refer to contained the names of individuals.
To confirm, or deny, that a certain action may or may not have been taken
will reveal whether an individual named was suspected of being employed by
the Force. This may not in fact mean that they are a member of the BNP but
in fact do no more than simply confirm that we have a member of staff with
the same name as one that appears on the list.

Before refusing to comply with the provisions of S1 (1) (a) of the Freedom
of Information Act, the Force also has to analyse any public interest
factors in neither confirming nor denying that information is or is not
held if any of the exemptions cited are qualified in nature. Both s30 and
s31 are, so the following public interest factors are relevant:

S30 Investigations

Favouring confirmation or denial:

Confirming the existence of information would show that the Force
conducted an investigation, which the public would expect.

Against confirmation or denial:

An investigation if unknown could be compromised and it could hinder the
prevention or detection of crime. That may even be because under the FOIA,
Forces may provide different responses and applications of the S30
exemption in some areas and not in others would in fact immediately expose
such investigations.

S31 Law Enforcement

Favouring confirmation or denial:

Some information regarding the ability to check against the list is
already in the public domain and its full usage would make the public
better informed.

Against confirmation or denial:

Law enforcement tactics could be compromised and there could be a
hindrance to the prevention or detection of crime.

Balance of Public Interest Test

At this time, the potential harm to current and future investigations
outweighs any public benefit in knowing if any additional information is,
or is not held. Police Officers and staff are held to public account for
their actions by the misconduct regulations and the Force is held to
account for investigating such matters inappropriately by Her Majesties
Inspector of Constabulary, and/or in some cases by the Independent Police
Complaints Commission. There is no further tangible community benefit in
complying with Section 1 (1) (a) of the FOIA at this time.

This response should not be taken as an inference that Thames Valley
Police does or does not hold any further information in relation to your
request.

It may interest you to know that the Police Service would be legally
entitled to process this sensitive personal data anyway, under Schedule 2
Condition 5 and Schedule 3 paragraph 10 (Statutory Instrument 417/2000,
the Data Protection (Processing of Sensitive Personal Data) Order 2000,
paragraph 2). The grounds for any decision would be that being a member of
the BNP is incompatible with the role of a police officer/police staff and
would be regarded as gross misconduct requiring formal action. This does
not however, mean that Thames Valley Police has taken any such action at
this time.

Please contact me quoting the above reference number if you would like to
discuss this matter further and may I take this opportunity to thank you
for your interest in Thames Valley Police.

Yours sincerely,

Jane Shields

Freedom of Information Administrator

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From: Mark Walker

7 December 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your response of 21st October 2009. I would like to
request an internal review of the decision not to disclose
information.

As you will be aware there is a general right of access to
information held by public authorities. In OGC v Information
Commissioner [2008] EA/2006/0040, 5.3.07 (at para 71) the High
Court approved the following statement:-

“[T]here is an assumption built into FOIA that the disclosure of
information by public authorities on request is in itself of value
and in the public interest, in order to promote transparency and
accountability in relation to the activities of public
authorities.”

You have claimed exemptions which are subject to a public interest
test. This requires you to take into account the public interest in
deciding whether to release information even when an exemption
applies. In short, our understanding is that the public interest
may override the exemption.

It is our belief that there is a presumption in favour of
disclosure in the Act created by the reverse emphasis in section 2.
We argue that where the balance is even, the public interest in a
particular disclosure should prevail.

We wish the review to consider the following points:-

1. The public would assume that the Police forces had obtained and
reviewed a copy of the leaked BNP list as there is a policy banning
BNP members from serving in the force and the list was leaked onto
the Internet (via Wikileaks). Several forces have publicly
disciplined workers on the basis that they were on this list. At
the time Spokespersons for Forces were happy to tell the Press that
they were "scouring" the list for people to discipline. Several
forces have also confirmed that they hold the list for this purpose
and others in response to FOI requests. We argue that claiming
exemptions on the grounds you do is therefore misconceived.

2. The only criminal charge we are aware of relates to Matt Single,
the person convicted under Data Protection law for leaking it. No
other criminal matter relating to the list has been brought before
the courts. It is difficult to understand what kind of criminal
investigations might be prejudiced by answering our request,
therefore.

3. We argue that it would be possible for you to disclose
information in response to our request that does not relate to the
areas covered by the exemptions. A blanket refusal is not a
proportionate response.

4. You have failed to fully consider the public interest in
disclosure. Specifically we would like the Review to consider the
public interest in:-

(a) Assisting public understanding of an issue that is subject to
current national debate
(b) Enabling a proper debate of issues relating to Data Protection,
Privacy, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Expression and misuse
of Government powers to the detriment of individual rights. We
argue that an informed debate cannot take place without wide
availability of all the relevant information.
(c) Allowing individuals affected adversely in Employment
information which they can refer to in order to challenge
discrimination on political grounds.
(d) Allowing analysis and scrutiny of the effect and implications
of a major policy decision with Human Rights implications
(e) Providing our Union sufficient information to allow us to make
representations on this issue. See Case No A.31/00 relating to the
enforcement of The Open Government Code of Practice on Access to
Government Information enforced by the Parliamentary Ombudsman.
This is particularly important to us as we have members who are or
may be directly affected in their employment.
(f) Providing our Union with information which can be used to see
the practical implications of a limitation on the right of Freedom
of Association. This is important as further restrictions are being
considered. In fact we recently gave evidence to the Smith review
(concerning Education) on this point, amongst others.
(g) Providing information which makes individuals and institutions
accountable for decisions.

Our Union argues that the substance of the information we have
requested relates to a matter of serious and legitimate public
concern and its disclosure will inform public debate. The public
interest in disclosing the information outweighs any public
interest in not disclosing it.

Yours sincerely

Mark Walker
Solidarity Trade Union
www.solidaritytradeunion.org

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From: FOI
Thames Valley Police

8 December 2009

Dear Mr Walker

Reference No: IR2009000019

I acknowledge receipt of your email dated 07/12/2009 requesting that
Thames Valley Police review its response to your request for information
concerning BNP Membership List.

The review will be conducted in accordance to Thames Valley Police's
review procedure and every effort will be made to have a response to you
by the 8^th January 2009. However if it becomes clear that the review
will not be completed by this date you will be contacted.

If you wish to discuss this matter prior to Thames Valley Police's
response please contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Malcolm Hopgood

Freedom of Information Officer

0845 8 505 505

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From: FOI
Thames Valley Police

18 December 2009

Dear Mr Walker

Reference No: IR2009000019 / RFI2009000700

Thank you for your e-mail dated 7^th December 2009 in respect of your
request for an internal review regarding our response to your original
request dated 6^th October 2009 concerning the leaked British National
Party membership list.

I have now had a opportunity to fully review your response to the criteria
relied upon in our Neither Confirm nor Deny stance with our Compliance
Manager and inform you that we are satisfied that the explanation and
rationale of the information requested is in accordance contained within
the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our original
stance of neither confirm nor deny is upheld.

I would further add the following comments in response to your internal
review request to fully consider your arguments for the public interest.

a) We are unaware of any ongoing national debate that the government
should change the law allowing police membership of the BNP.

b) All information relating to the barring of police force members
from political party membership is already a matter of public record.
This information can be found in Hansard and media reports of the time
when current Police regulations were debated in open parliament. The
debate has already been concluded.

c), d), e), f) and g) Although the Police Federation is not a trade union
per se, they and other staff associations were engaged in internal
consultation discussions with regard the implementation of the most recent
changes to Police Regulations. We can see little relevance in this
subject being re-examined by the Solidarity Trade Union. Unison is the
only recognised trade union for police staff.

If you are not satisfied with my response, you may make application to the
Information Commissioner for a decision on whether the request for
information has been dealt with in accordance with the requirements of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.

For information on how to make application to the Information
Commissioner, please visit their website at:
[1]www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

If you wish to discuss this matter prior to any further action on your
part please contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Malcolm Hopgood

Freedom of Information Officer

0845 8 505 505

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References

Visible links
1. http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/

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Things to do with this request

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